1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to improvements in card dealing apparatus, methods and systems and, more particularly, to an apparatus method and system involving a shoe used to hold a deck of cards which allows the card values to be identified by an integral scanner as the cards are dealt one-by-one from the shoe, with the resulting information being supplied to a computer system and software which identifies card count systems or strategies employed by the players receiving cards from the shoe.
2. Description of the Related Art
Shoes used for delivering cards have been known and used for a number of years in the past. In such a shoe, one or more decks of cards are placed in an opening at the top of the shoe during the play of a particular card game such as "21" or "Blackjack" and the shoe is situated near a dealer's station at a card game table. The dealer feeds the cards for delivery to the players at the card game table by manually engaging and forcing the top card of the deck through a feed slot at the front of the shoe. The top card of the deck is then pulled from the deck and delivered or dealt to a game player. In this way, a series of cards are delivered, one-by-one, to the players of the card game at the card game table until the players all have the requisite number of cards to play the game. The shoe is in the view of the dealer and the game players, and neither the players nor the dealer are aware of any of the cards value or suit since they are placed face down in the shoe and are not observable while the cards are in the shoe.
While shoes of this type are adequate for delivering cards one-by-one to game players of a card game, there is room for improvement, especially if there are to be checks made on the play of the game to assure that the cards are not being counted or tracked by professional card count system counters, or that other activities are not being pursued which would affect the profit margin of the casino or the gaming location where the card game is being played.
In 1964, Edward O. Thorp's book; "BEAT THE DEALER--A WINNING STRATEGY FOR THE GAME OF TWENTY ONE", was published and favorably accepted by the public. This book offered the reader basic strategy and card count system decision indices for playing the game of twenty-one. Fundamentally, Mr. Thorp's "BEAT THE DEALER", proved that the game of casino blackjack or twenty-one was not merely a game of chance, but also a game of skill. Subsequent to the publication of Thorp's "BEAT THE DEALER" many other books have been written and published by other authors detailing recommended decision indices for basic strategies and/or card count systems to be used by the reader when playing the casino card game of twenty-one. Many individuals who purchased, read, studied and implemented the card count system strategies detailed in these books soon became expert enough to play and beat the game of twenty-one offered by casinos. Those individuals who became expert at one of the basic strategies were able to significantly reduce their losses. Those individual who became expert at one of the card count systems were able to not only significantly reduce their losses; but they also achieved winning results.
Prior to the publication of "BEAT THE DEALER"; one-hundred-percent of twenty-one games dealt in legalized casinos in the United States of America were one and two deck hand decks. As the number of highly skilled card counters grew; most casinos reduced the number of twenty-one games dealt from one and two decks of playing cards, dealt from the dealer's hand, and increased the number to four, six or eight decks of playing cards dealt by hand from a card dispensing shoe.
Also, to offset any advantage a skilled card counter garnered in using a card count system, casinos changed the rules of the game, so that the rules were less favorable to the players. For example, the casinos reduced the deck penetration (the percentage of the deck dealt to the players before shuffling) for twenty-one or Blackjack games, from one-hundred-percent, (100%), to as little as fifty-percent, (50%) deck penetration. Today, it is rare to see any casino using hand decks to deal the game of twenty-one on more than fifty-percent of its twenty-one games and many casino's only deal the game of twenty-one from shoes containing multiple decks of playing cards.
The advent and availability of these card count systems and basic "21" or Blackjack strategies to the gambling public has directly and indirectly resulted in the legalized gaming industry, annually, losing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue they would otherwise earn from casino twenty-one players who previously played the game using random strategy and personal betting skills. Casino's have also experienced a further loss of revenue from their twenty-one games because the reduced deck penetration results in the dealer having to shuffle the decks of cards more frequently; thereby reducing the number of hands a dealer can deal per hour; thereby reducing the total amount of bets made at the game table on which a casino's "Theoretical Win" is based. (A casino's "Theoretical Win", or house advantage, for the game of twenty-one is normally projected at one-percent, (1%), of the total amount of money bet by the players during the course of the play.) A twenty-one player who plays one or more of the published basic strategies at a proficiency of one-hundred-percent, (100%), will reduce the casino's "Theoretical Win" to approximately one-half-percent, (0.5%), and a twenty-one player who plays one or more of the published card count systems at a proficiency of one-hundred-percent, (100%), can obliterate the casino's "Theoretical Win" by reducing it to a negative percent, or an advantage to the highly skilled card counting player that may range from approximately one-half-percent, (0.5%), to more than three percent, (3%).
Casinos use the "Theoretical Win" to calculate each casino's projected win, or earning potential, from each individual twenty-one player who, in theory, usually makes random strategy and betting decisions during the play of the game. Each player's projected earning potential is then broken down into the player's projected loss per hour, day, or trip to the casino, and each player's complimentary value or complimentary equivalency. A casino twenty-one player's or customer's complimentary equivalency is identified as a percent, usually fifty-percent (50%), of the customer's earning potential, or customer's projected loss to the casino. A casino twenty-one player or customer's complimentary equivalency is further identified as the maximum dollar value of gratuities, (free room, food, beverages, and etc.), that a casino determines it may grant to a customer and still generate a profit to the casino from that customer.
The formulae used by casino to calculate a twenty-one player's earning potential and subsequent complimentary equivalency is:
Days/Stay.times.Hours Played per Day.times.Hands Played per Hour.times.Average Bet per Hand=Total Amount Bet per Trip PA1 Total Amount Bet per Trip.times.Theoretical Win (1.0%)=Customer's Projected Loss per Trip or Earning Potential, the Casino's "Theoretical Win" per customer's trip. PA1 Customer's Projected Loss per Trip.times.50.0%=Complimentary Equivalency Using values of 2 days stay, 4 hours played per day, 75 hands played per hour and $100.00 average bet per hand in the above formulae results in; PA1 2.times.4.times.75.times.$100.00=$60,000.00 Total Amount Bet Per Trip PA1 $60,000,00.times.1.0%=$600.00 Projected Customer's Loss per Trip, Or Earning Potential, The Casino's "Theoretical Win" Per Trip PA1 $600.00.times.50.0%=$300 Projected Complimentary Equivalency PA1 $600.00.times.8 (total hours of gambling)=$75.00 Projected Customer's Loss Per Hour, Or Earning Potential, Or The Casino's "Theoretical Win" In Dollars Per Hour PA1 $600.00/2 (days of gambling)=$300.00 Projected Customer's Loss Per Day, Or Earning Potential, Or The Casino's "Theoretical Win" In Dollars Per Day.
The above Theoretical Win per trip can also be converted to an average daily or hourly value:
Over the years, in an attempt to minimize a casino's losses to skilled basic strategy and card count system players of the game of twenty-one, casinos have attempted to train their employees, and have them become expert, in one or more of the same basic strategies or card count systems. Using this expertise, the employees are expected to be able to identify those casino twenty-one customers who are expert basic strategy players or card counters during their real playing time. Empirically; and realistically casino employees have proven to be less than competent in determining each player's precise basic strategy and/or card counting decision and betting strategy skills during this real time; and subsequently implementing appropriate counter measures, if any are required, and/or providing a more accurate means of determining a skilled players earning potential or complimentary equivalency.
Recently some casinos have been using software programs to evaluate and compare casino twenty-one players strategy decision and/or betting skills to one or more card count systems or basic strategy decision indices. These evaluations are normally conducted after-the-fact by having a computer data entry operator, who observes the twenty-one game to be evaluated by means of a VCR recording made of the game when it was played, enter the cards dealt to the dealer and the players for each hand played during a round of twenty-one, record the amount bet on each players hand, when known, and record the player's playing and/or betting decisions on each hand played during a round of twenty-one. Using this method, a twenty-one players playing strategy proficiency at one or more basic strategies and card count systems programmed into the software application can be accurately determined by having the computer program compare each players playing strategy decisions to the recommended true count decision indices for each of the card count systems, and the recommended decision indices for each players hand total for each of the basic strategies programmed into the software. Each players betting proficiency for each of the card count systems programmed into the software can also be determined by comparing the players increase or decrease in his/her bets relative to each card count systems true count for the deck(s) being dealt at the beginning of each round prior to the delivery of the first card to the players for the current game round to be played. (No betting strategy proficiency is calculated for any basic strategy. A basic strategy system does not include or calculate a running or true count, or recommend a specific betting unit to be bet for any specific round during the course of the play of the game as card count systems do.)
However, it has proved to be almost impossible to accurately determine the amount of the players bets for each hand played when the amount of the bets entered for the evaluated twenty-one game are determined by viewing a VCR recording, or a casino's surveillance tapes, of the game to be evaluated. This is true because the vast majority of casino twenty-one games are recorded using an overhead camera view and the value of the bets made by each player cannot be determined with any great degree of accuracy from the overhead position when the player's bet is in the form of a vertical, (in line), stack of two or more gaming chips.
Therefore, a need exists to provide a casino, during real time, with an improved means of identifying and recording, with one-hundred-percent, (100%), accuracy, a twenty-one player's strategy skills, his/her betting skills, and the precise amounts each individual twenty-one player bets each hand during the course of a game thereby allowing the casino to use actual dollar amounts bet per player when using the "Theoretical Win" to more precisely calculate each players earning potential and complimentary equivalency.
The present invention has the advantages of allowing the dealer of the game, who has an unobstructed view of the game cards and the bets made by the game players, to record each player's playing strategy decisions: Insurance, Surrender, Stand, Double Down, and Split (Hit decisions are recorded by the CPU) and the amounts bet on each player's hand for the current round, (the dealer can, if necessary, physically reach out and count the gaming chips or cash money bet on a hand to identify and record during real time the exact amount of the bet made for each hand or seat for the current game round), and the shoe's scanner, transmitting the value of the cards dealt to each player's hand to the CPU's software program as the cards are removed from the shoe, will eliminate those errors currently experienced by "21" evaluation program data entry operators who manually input the game card values; i.e. (when the dealer of the evaluated game does not spread each players games cards in a manner that all of the game cards are not readable by the data entry operator obtaining the game data from a VCR recording of the game being evaluated), thereby generating an accurate, real time, evaluation of a twenty-one player's basic strategy, card counting, and betting skills. Additionally, the present invention will provide a innovative means for calculating each twenty-one player's "True Worth", or real earning potential and complimentary equivalency, based on each player's advantage or disadvantage over the house when playing one or more basic strategies, or card count systems at a specific proficiency. This is done by coupling the shoe of the present invention to a software program designed to evaluate the strategy and betting skills of casino blackjack players during their actual play, and to calculate each player's earning potential and complimentary equivalency based, not on a casino's "Theoretical Win" or advantage over the player, but on a player's advantage or disadvantage over the house when playing one or more basic strategies, or card count systems at a specific proficiency.